Sermons of Jonathan Scanlon

GENESIS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Monday, March 23, 2015

Ann Weems is a
best-selling poet, writer, speaker, and conference leader. She is also an ordained elder in the
Presbyterian Church. Ms. Weems has written a poem that echo’s this morning’s
Jeremiah and John themes. She speaks to broken covenants, and necessary
judgment.

Listen to how she captures
the essence of the human condition in the first paragraph of her poem, “We Would
See Jesus.”

“Broken covenant.
Broken covenant. Broken covenant.

Over and over and over
again.

Faithless faithless
faithless.

Jeremiah, O Jeremiah,

I’ve seen how
Rembrandt painted you:

Your head in your
hands, eyes downcast,

Shoulders slumped.

God has been in covenant with faithless people.

But in exile they pray for forgiveness,

Reminding God who God is:

A God of covenant love

A God of mercy.

They promise to repent.

God responds:

I have loved you

With
an everlasting love:

Therefore I have continued

My
faithfulness to you.

Weems in not bashful
about rightly convicting us as broken and faithless people. Often our head is
in our hands. Despite our cry for mercy, we sense in her poem God’s displeasure.
Yes, “I have loved you…so I have
continued my faithfulness to you,” but you, oh, you are a faithless people.

Before God can raise
the hammer again, we protest. Yes, Lord, we have our “moments.” But we are, deep
inside, good people. Our hearts are in the right place. Please Lord, give us
another chance.

I believe Weems’ poem
is an honest reflection of our human condition. Despite our good intentions, we
can be the opposite of who God needs us to be. Despite our good intentions,
there is evil in us. Despite our good intentions, our actions do not always
match our words.

At the inauguration of Bill Clinton’s
presidency, Billy Graham, arguably the world’s most famous Christian
Evangelist, was asked to bring an inaugural prayer. It was not easy for him to
get to the podium that day, by then he had been a minister for fifty years, he
was aging and weak, yet he pulled himself up to the podium. He got God’s
attention on behalf of the nation, and then went right to the opening statement
of his prayer: “Oh God, we have sinned…”

The shock of this opening statement was like a slap in the
face. You could almost feel the guilty downward glance of the nation as Billy
Graham publicly put his finger on the real problem with us and the world. “Oh
God, we have sinned.”

We know this is true,
but we do not like to hear publically what we struggle with privately. Our
guilt is ever before us, and it simmers deep in our souls.

So we try to soften
the truth. We work hard to rid ourselves of the negative influence of words
like sin, and hell, and guilt, and wrath. We are the “Frozen Chosen” after all,
not the “Hell Fire and Damnation” believers.

That day, hearing the
word sin on television, coming from the steps of the capitol, with the whole
world watching, was a jolt to our sensibility. Billy Graham’s prayer, “Oh God,
we have sinned,” pins us all to the wall.

Being so tightly pinned, God should be breaking off our
relationship and casting us into those hellish and damning fires. Isn’t that exactly what we deserve?

Not according to
Jeremiah, not according to John, and thankfully, not according to our God.

Our Lord promises in
Jeremiah, “I will make a new covenant with…” them. “I will be their God, and
they will be my people.” “For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their
sin no more.”

John’s gospel then tells
us how God will do these things. God will judge the world. But from that
judgment, God will offer his son to take our place. Jesus will come to the hour
of his death not for our glory, but for God’s.

We have been rightly convicted, we have sinned. God’s
judgment of that sin is self- evident. We know what we deserve. We have been faithless again, and again. We
have broken God’s covenant again, and again.

Our God wants to write
a new contract with us. Our God wants to make a new promise with us. Why? Why
would our God do this? God should cut and run.

Yet, that is not what
God does. Because our God is a God of covenant love, a God of mercy, a God who
continues being faithful to us, our God brings a new covenant, not of more
written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the
Spirit gives life.

One of my home-church
pastors, Tom Curry, says that God’s everlasting love in response to our sin
“scandalizes, us, constrains our agendas, draws us out of ourselves, and into
the strange polity of his body,” God’s church.

We are scandalized
and constrained because we cannot live our agendas. We are drawn out of our
selfish selves because, we cannot follow the will of our sin-filled ego when faced
with the profound love that takes us kicking and screaming with Jesus to the
cross.

To the cross where we
are to die to self, and be born again, free of sin. Free from all ego driven
infatuation, we will forever be wedded to this new life, a life of unrestrained
love for God and all of God’s creation. Be they friend or foe, good or bad,
loved one or enemy.

But there is more.

Not only does our God
love us unconditionally, our God showers us with God’s infinite grace. We often
forget about God’s grace. We often forget God brings the covenant of that grace
into our lives through our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Though our relationship
with Jesus, in the form of the promise of salvation to sinful humanity, we know
firsthand God’s grace and God’s glory. If this truth does not humble and
silence our protest we are truly scandalized and unworthy.

Yet, we persist. Despite Billy Graham’s prayer, “Oh God, we
have sinned,” we continue to whine! “Yes Lord, I have sinned, but I have
several really good excuses.”

Is there no hope for us?

Yes, sisters and brothers, there is. God is
not buying our whining. God knows us all too well. God knows what’s in our
hearts. We know it too. We love God. We
need God in our lives. It is time we admit it, and do something about it.
Otherwise Jesus died for nothing.

What then are we to do? Are we worried it is
too late for us? Has our time passed? Are these God’s questions or our own?

Dear ones, Jesus
teaches us about life, and death. He teaches us how to live above our sin. He
teaches we are to be faithful to God. There is no time line for these truths.
We are never too young, or too old. We are to live God’s will of love and
service, to God and others, always and in all things.

Loving and serving
God in this way certainly has consequences, consequences, and by God’s grace,
good news. Jesus tells us, “Whoever serves me, the Father will honor”.

God will honor us! Yes, God will honor us. If
we step up and make this decision to be all-in, loving and serving God and
others, always and in all things, God will honor us! God will bring blessings,
and love, and hope, always and in all things. With friend and foe, good or bad,
loved one or enemy, even when it is not so evident.

This may be too much
grace for us to bear. This may be too much love for us to realize. Lord, did you not hear our pray, “We have
sinned.”

Yes, God hear us. Now
God wants to know “Have you not heard me!” “I created you, I am in love with you,
and I want to be with you forever.”

Yes, this life is messy. Yes, it is not easy
to be bound to one another forever. It is not easy to be family, or community,
or church.

But here we are. Weak and dependent, sinful and unredeemable,
bound together to serve the one who loves scandalized folk despite themselves.

Our God has continued to be faithful to us. Our
God believes in us, and we are being called to the simplest life, to believe in
God, and to serve God in our love for one another.

Dear ones, it is for
this reason that we have come to this hour.

What now do we have to say?

In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever, Amen

Thursday, January 22, 2015

1 Samuel, chapter 3,
begins very poetically with the words, “the word of the Lord was rare in those
days; visions were not widespread.” The Hebrew word translated as “rare” means
not only uncommon, but also precious. And God chooses Samuel to tell this rare
and precious word to the people. If God’s word was considered rare in those
days, do we question if it is borderline absent from the world today? Do we
know what is it like to live in a world where hearing the word of the Lord is
rare?

This was a time of
spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political unrest and social
upheaval. In other words, badthingswerehappeningatthetimetheyoungboySamuelcameonthesceneintheBible.It isSamuelwhowillbetappedastheprophettomakeroomforandidentifytheKingbothSaulandDavid.Thepeopledidnothaveavisionof howtheyweretolive togetheranddreamsofbuildingthekingdomofGodbecause theywerenotbeinglead.TheleadershipoverancientIsraelwas corrupt,andnotdoingtheirjob.Ofcourse,IsraelcannotseeGod inandamongthecommunityifEli,themainpriestoftheday,remains tooblindtoseehowhissonsareabusingpower.

“Look,” he
said, “this is not a laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have
encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible.”

As the
conversation progressed, Willimon pointed out that both her well-meaning, but
obviously unprepared, parents were the one who started this ball rolling in
their daughter’s life. They were the ones who had her baptized as an infant,
read Bible stories to her as a child, took her to Sunday school and church, and
let her attend the events of the high school youth group. William Willimon
reminded the father, “You’re the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me.”

The father
meekly responded, “But all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian.”

Where and to
what is God calling you in this world where the word of the Lord is rare? Where
and to what is God calling this church? Dowhat’sright.Youstandupforjustice.I'llbewithyou.
Speak Lord, for your servants are listening. In the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May it be so? Amen.